Seize
by tarsus4survivor
Summary: When the BMoL capture Dean, Sam, and Castiel, it's up to Dean and Sam to fix whatever's been done to their angel before it kills him.
1. Chapter 1

They're barely out of the car, doors closed, when Cas drops like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

"Cas!" Sam and Dean both race forward and fall to their knees beside him. His eyes are open but not moving, his chest still, his body completely limp. Is he dead?

"Sorry about that, boys." A woman steps out of the bunker's shadow, a gun aimed straight at them.

Dean stands, between her and Sam and Cas.

"Had to get the angel out of the way. It seems the paralyzing sigils work perfectly." She smirks. "The ones carved into the bullet, that is."

Sam swears. He starts patting Cas down. His head, his neck, his torso, his arms, and further down. His hands stop, smeared with blood. "Left knee." His voice lowers, "You're gonna be okay, Cas. We'll get it out."

"Those sigils ain't gonna work on us, sweetheart. You can maybe get one of us before the other is right on top of you."

Sam stands.

"Oh, but didn't I mention? I'm not alone."

They're surrounded in seconds.

* * *

The voice is recognizable instantly, that edge of grittiness. It's Cas, and as grateful as Dean is that his vocal cords are working and they've taken the bullet out, this is worse. He's screaming. He's been screaming for hours. Dean bangs the doors again. He's yelling at the guards. Invisible ones, but they're watching them somehow, he's sure. Cameras maybe. Threatening them doesn't seem to have any effect.

The screaming dies down slowly, soft and hoarse like Cas just doesn't have the air anymore. Five minutes later, it starts up again with an even greater intensity. His angel voice is seeping through and the pitch is deafening. The guards probably can't hear a word Dean is saying. It takes another hour for it to die down. Dean knows because there's a clock on the wall right outside the cells.

It doesn't start up again and now Dean is forced to wonder if they've killed him.

And then the door at the end of the cell block bangs open and a parade of guards march down the hallway, two of them dragging a limp trench-coated figure. They drop him into the cell next to Sam, ignoring whatever Dean is creative enough to shout at them.

Cas just drops straight to the floor, one arm rolled beneath him. He's on his front and Dean can't see his face. He's alive though, he's gotta be alive, you don't let a dead man take up cell space. And he's limp, but his body is rolling with tremors.

The guards leave and Sam is thrusting his arm between the bars, trying to reach their angel. "Cas?"

Cas's head lolls to the side. "I'm fine," he says, and his voice sounds awful. Hoarse and sore and strained. His breaths are hitching.

"Sure you are. Can you move closer to me?"

Cas sort of spasms onto his back, and Dean can see that his eyes are fluttering. "What do you need?" Cas asks.

Dean almost kicks the bars.

Sam is still reaching as far as he can through the bars. "Nothing, Cas, just come closer."

Cas does, inch by inch, sliding across the floor over to where his cell meets Sam's. He's panting by the time he's moved the three feet to get there.

Sam is immediately patting him down, "Where are you hurt?"

Cas lifts his hands to try and stop him and Dean can tell from where he's watching that it's way too easy for Sam to gently shift Cas's hands out of the way. He goes limp again, like that took every ounce of his energy.

"Your head's bleeding," says Sam.

Cas's eyes flutter closed. "I hit it."

"On what?"

"The floor."

Sam keeps patting him down, checking for blood and broken bones, and he starts to frown, his eyebrows pinching. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

He's gotta be, he's been screaming bloody murder for five hours and he's weak as kitten.

"I'm fine," says Cas.

Sam's frown deepens and then he's pulling open the trenchcoat and lifting Cas's shirt. "You're all bruised."

"They dropped me."

"No," says Sam, "No this isn't from that." He pulls the shirt higher. Then he tilts Cas onto his side a little and squints at his back. "You're _all_ bruised. It's everywhere."

"They're just bruises."

Sam shifts Cas onto his back and starts rolling up the angel's sleeves. Cas jerks away. "I'm fine." Sam ignores him and the weak pulling of the arm in his grasp. He rolls the sleeve up to the elbow and stops, fingers touching the inside of the joint, "Did they inject you with something?"

"Once or… or twice."

Sam looks up at Cas's face and his jaw shifts. "Turn your head for me."

Cas opens his eyes, squinting. "What?"

"Like this," and Sam turns his head to the side, "Turn it toward me."

Cas does. Sam reaches through the bars and brushes the far side of his neck. "Once or twice? There's gotta be over a dozen needle marks here." He pulls back and shifts down a few bars, "Let me see your other arm."

Cas doesn't move it but Sam's close enough to reach. He rolls up the sleeve and his face falls. "Two dozen."

"What'd they get you with?" asks Dean.

Cas's shuddering becomes more pronounced. "Demon blood," he says, and his eyes close again.

Sam peels off his jacket and slips it through the bars to lay it over Cas's torso. "What's that do to angels?"

Cas lolls his head. "Nothing good." His fingers twitch at the jacket, "You'll get… cold."

"I'm fine. You're shivering."

"It's not shivering. I'm not… cold. I can't… control it."

"Can't control shivering. Keep it." Sam rearranges the jacket over his arm. "You should get some sleep."

"Angels…" His eyes stop fluttering. His breathing settles a little.

"There you go," Sam murmurs. "We'll watch over you this time."

It's too soon when the doors scrape open off to Dean's left. Much too soon. Dean starts yelling.

Sam nudges Cas awake and Cas just rolls his head and watches as several men of letters approach his cell-and it is _his_ cell they're approaching. It's not until one of them reaches into his pocket and pulls out a syringe that Cas starts moving.

Cas's movements are weak but he sits up, back against the bars that connect his cell to Sam's. "Don't," he says, hands up to defend or attack.

Another man unlocks the cell-Dean is careful to memorize their faces so he'll know who to come for first when they get out of this, even as he yells, "Don't touch him! You sons of bitches. Touch him and I'll kill you. I'll melt your gun down and drown you with it!" They all ignore him.

Two men break the barrier into Castiel's cell and the person holding the syringe follows. Demon blood, Cas said. That must be more demon blood.

Cas stands using the bars of the cells. Sam's jacket falls to the floor. "I can't take any more," he says. "It'll kill me. Your bosses want me alive."

"Oh don't worry," one of them says, voice reedy and hollow-the one holding the syringe. That's all he says. And it leaves Dean unsettled because it feels unfinished. Where's the threat? The insult?

The others don't say anything at all. They walk slow and careful toward Castiel and Castiel walks slow and careful toward the corner of the cell. They snap forward and grab him, wresting him down to his knees while Cas struggles and fights. They pin him down-Cas must be weak because there's no way two men could hold him otherwise-and the syringe moves forward. The British bastard stabs it into Cas's neck. It takes less than a minute for Cas to start screaming.

Cas writhes on the floor, shaking and jerking and screaming as they exit and lock the cell. Two of the men walk out of the room entirely and only one stays, walking past the cells to take up a post by the door, but Dean has eyes only for Cas.

"Cas! Cas!"

When Cas doesn't respond-can't respond because he's having a flippin' seizure-Dean's focus pulls toward the other man in the room. "I'll kill you. You son of a bitch, I'll kill you."

Two hours. Two hours before Cas stops seizing and screaming. The guard breaks forward, another needle in his hand, and he comes just through the edge of Dean's reach. His mistake.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean snaps his hand through the bars—what kind of idiot place has bars on their cells—and latches onto the guard's arm, yanking it toward him. And Dean snaps his other hand out to grab the guard's fingers, shattering them into the metal poles as the guard tilts. There's a violent crack, possibly more than one, and the guard lets out a strangled cry.

Dean pulls the guard's entire arm through the bars—wide freakin' bars—and Dean drags all his weight downward until the guard's shoulder catches on one of the horizontal bars and then he keeps pulling until it pops.

The guy is twisting his body at this point, trying to relieve the pressure, so Dean lets go with one arm and reaches out to snatch a leg, pulling it through the bars and releasing the guard's arm entirely to yank him to the floor.

"Keys." Dean shifts his grip, hands on either side of the ankle, one up, one down. "Keys or I break it." Dean flicks a glance over to the door—they're watching them, he's sure. There must be cameras somewhere.

The guard laughs and Dean feels chills roll down his spine. He busts the ankle. Wants to move up to the knee but can't get access through the bars of the cell. "Keys," he growls.

"They might want your angel alive," the guard says through teeth gritted with pain, "but they sure as hell don't care about me. And they're not stupid," he spits. "I don't have keys for all the cells. Just his. Let go before they decide you're not worth the trouble of keeping."

Dean tugs on the leg, the knee catching on the bars. He keeps tugging. "So give me his key," he murmurs darkly.

The guard just laughs again.

Cas is still shuddering and shaking and twitching in his cell, Sam trying to reach him, to get a barrier between his head and the concrete. Unsuccessfully.

"Key," Dean demands.

"Oh, don't worry," the guard says. He's just laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. "Don't worry." The syringe is beside him on the floor.

Dean lets out a sound that starts as a growl and ends as a roar with bared teeth. He lifts the guard's foot and slams it into the ground and then barrels up and tears at the guard's arm again. He pulls the man toward him, heaving the man to sitting with his back against the bars.

The guard lets him. His leg is still in Dean's cell from the shin down, turned now—and it'll be a real challenge for him to pull his foot back through at that angle.

Dean wraps his arm around the man's throat. Not too tight, just a warning. "Key."

The guard elbows Dean in the gut—loosening Dean's hold for a split second—and then twists away and turns and stabs something into Dean's arm.

"Gah!" It's another syringe and Dean has a split second of violent panic while he waits to start seizing. He doesn't.

But that second is all the guard needs to twist his leg and pull it through the bars.

Dean snaps forward too late, hand just grazing the shoe as the man hauls himself backward across the floor. Dean pulls the syringe from his arm, swearing.

The man overcorrects. A shadow moves behind him. Sam. Latching onto the collar of the guard's shirt and hauling him into the bars. "Key," Sam says, and he's careful to keep himself shielded when the man tries to writhe away. "Now. Or I'll bash your head in and find it myself."

Cas lets out a strangled sound—a whine—while his head and limbs bang against the ground. It hits Dean just as hard as the screaming did. A scream is torn from a throat. A whine is tortured from it.

Sam darkens. "Might anyway," he whispers to the guard.

"Screw you and your key," he spits. "I don't got nothin' to lose." He rolls his head back and stares at the ceiling of Dean's cell. "Might anyway," he echoes. "Real motivation killer there. Sorry, lads, but I'm afraid." He stops there. That's the end of his sentence; 'I'm afraid.'

Dean waits for him to tack on more and he doesn't. Dean's getting tense, waiting for someone to come running in, for alarms to start screeching, for this suicidal moron to finish his statements.

The guard just stares at the ceiling.

"I will kill you," Sam says. "Just give me the key. Empty your pockets."

"Go ahead and kill me. British bastards have destroyed her already, I'm sure. I don't got nothin' left."

Dean narrows his eyes. "You tryin' to imply somethin' there?"

Sam pulls on the shirt collar, tightening it. "That we should be bargaining with you instead of threatening, maybe?"

"What do you want?" Dean asks, expression unreadable.

The guard tilts his head down to meet Dean's eyes. It's the first time he's done so and it makes Dean unsettled. There's no life in those eyes.

"The angel."

"Screw that," Dean spits. He flicks his eyes up. "Sam?"

But Sam hesitates. "What do you want him for?"

"Sam!"

"You know who you were captured by?" The guard asks.

"Didn't bother to introduce themselves," Sam says.

"Men of Letters. British Chapter." He's talking slowly. Calmly. Like they have all the time in the world. "They're in the business of weapon development. I want a certain one to see completion."

"What one?" Sam asks.

Dean just glares.

"An angel exorcism."

Dean bristles. "What would R & D even look like for that?"

The guard turns his head. Stares at Cas still shaking on the floor.

"Oh hell no."

"They're still experimenting, obviously. Unfortunately they killed off quite a few of the specimens. They're being idiots about it. I want him"—the guy jerks his head toward Cas— "so I can start up a few experiments of my own."

Sam, thinking with his head like always, purses his lips. "That's not gonna happen. But," his chin tilts down, "we know quite a bit about angels. What works and what doesn't. Where you could go looking to find exorcisms. Help us out, we'll hook you up. But you don't touch Cas."

The guard grinds his jaw. "How much do you know?"

"Well we _work_ with an angel, don't we?"

The guard narrows his eyes as he considers. He stares at Cas for a moment. Then nods. "I need a guarantee."

Sam tightens his grip. "The guarantee is I don't kill you right now."

"Right. Fine."

Dean bobs his head. "They got cameras in here? Microphones? Guards at the door? What?"

"They're recording but no one's watching. Too much time wasted. They quadruple the speed before they sit down and take notes." He tilts his head. "Nine men between us and our exit. Assuming no one overstayed a shift to chat."

"Can you get the keys to our cells? Or something to pick it with?"

The guard dips a hand into his pocket.

Sam tenses, ready for anything, half-expecting a weapon.

But the man just pulls out a ring with keys on it. "I have them right here."

"All of them?" Dean asks, insult making his voice rise.

He nods, smirking.

Sam lets go of the guard and snatches them, the metal jangling as he pulls it through the bars. He finds a key that looks the right size and attempts to jam it into the lock. It doesn't fit. He moves to another one. Another one. And finally one slides inside and Sam twists it, hurriedly throwing open the door. He stops, staring down at the guard, and a muscle in his jaw shifts. He tosses the keys to Dean.

Dean unlocks his cell and then races to the cell opposite him, trusting Sam to watch the guy.

"Cas?"

Cas groans.

Dean barrels inside and drops down next to him. He jams the keys into his pocket. Cas is still spasming, just less continuously and violently. "Okay, buddy." Dean slips an arm behind Cas's back and starts to leverage him up.

"I can walk," Cas manages, the words as jerky as the rest of him. His neck flops backwards as his torso lifts.

"You can't even support your head." Dean keeps pulling him up and then Sam is there, helping, and Dean flicks a glance to the guard. He's just sitting there—busted ankle, Dean remembers. And a dislocated shoulder. Shouldn't be too much trouble.

They get Cas into a fireman carry over Dean's shoulder. Sam pulls his jacket off the floor.

Dean can feel and hear the way Cas's breaths are hitching with his spasms, like he stops breathing every time he convulses. "You holding your breath, Cas?"

"May—be."

"Why?"

"I don't wanna—" he jerks—"scream anymore." He jerks again and groans, "They'll… hear."

"Okay." Truth be told, Dean's not sure how well he could handle hearing it anymore. "Just don't hold it too long and pass out on me."

Cas spasms. "Right."

Sam walks out of the cell and bends down to give the guard a hand. He pats him down for weapons first, finding only a few syringes which Sam immediately hurls at the wall. He throws the guard's arm over his shoulder and heaves him up. "You gotta tell us the right way out of here."

Dean follows.

Sam hesitates at the door leading to the outside room. He's not sure he believes that there are no security cameras or silent alarms or something that will be informing everyone of their escape. "Sam."

"Yeah?" Sam is right beside him, staring warily at the door.

"Might be time to start prayin' again."

Cas holds his breath and jerks, then exhales heavily.

They make it out. Miracle of miracles, bursting past ten guards. Sam takes the first one. They come up on him by surprise. Sam drops their maybe-ally on his ass and then delivers one solid punch to the guard's face. When he pats him down, he discovers a gun. And that makes things a whole lot simpler from there on out.

Dean's ready to take the nearest car when Sam finds the impala. There's a spare set of keys hidden behind one of the wheels.

Sam drops the guard a good ten feet away. Then he unlocks the door, squeezes onto the floor of the backseat, and turns. He catches Cas as Dean tilts him off his back, supporting his back and head all the way down. Dean carefully tucks Cas's legs into the car and then closes the door.

Cas spasms and his arm hits Sam. "Sorry."

"That's okay." Sam gently shifts the arm back onto Cas's chest. "Like you said, you can't control it." He drapes his jacket over the shuddering angel. "Guess you really weren't shivering, huh?"

Cas's head jerks to the side, his hands and legs twitching. "I… told you." His chest is hitching.

Dean looks at the guard. It's his left ankle that's broken, so he can drive away himself just fine. In his own car. "What do you wanna know?"

"You'll have to verify it somehow, you can't just—"

"What do you want to know?" Dean pounds out every syllable.

The guard doesn't ask for much.

Dean gives him as much as he can. As much as he's willing to. Simple, straightforward. No time to waste. Then he gets in the driver's seat of the impala and pulls out.

"You know," says Sam, looking down at Cas, still folded awkwardly in the backseat, "We're a decent distance away now. You don't have to hold your breath like that. Looks like it hurts."

"What?" Cas asks, breath huffing.

"You can scream, Cas. It might help."

"I—I'm okay." Cas is staring up at the roof of the car. Dean's not altogether sure he can move his head.

"Okay," says Sam, "But Dean and I, we can take it, so if it gets worse you don't have to hold back, alright?"

Cas jerks. "Alright."

"Good. Maybe you should try to get some sleep."

Cas's head jerks. "I don't thi—ink I can."

"Just close your eyes and try for me."

Cas's eyes don't close. They roll up into his skull and then he's seizing again.

Sam braces his head, murmuring to him.

It only lasts five minutes, but toward the end of it Cas has tears streaming down his face. Sam brushes them away. "Okay, you're okay."

Cas spasms and sobs, and his panting is getting weaker, slower. "S-rr-y." The word is shredded as he convulses.

Sam starts massaging the corded muscles of his neck. "Shhhhh. You don't have anything to be sorry for, Cas. Everything's gonna be okay. We're gonna get you home and clear this crap outta your system, and then you can sleep a good long while. Just hold out 'til then. Feel free to scream."

"I don't—wanna."

"Okay."

He seizes twice more while they're driving, and by the time they reach the bunker, he's too weak to loll his head. Even his spasms are weaker, like his muscles have been torn apart and can barely contract. His eyes are closed.

Dean puts the car in park and opens the back door. Sam climbs most of the way out, then ducks back in and pulls Cas's arm over his shoulder. He picks him up in a bridal carry and Cas is shuddering—but it's not shuddering, he's just jerking weakly in Sam's grasp, his head craning backward toward the floor. His hand is twitching at the fabric of Sam's sleeve, trying to hold his arm up across the shoulders. It keeps falling off and then jerking back on.

Dean gently grabs Cas's head and tilts it upright, leaning it against Sam's shoulder and neck. Cas doesn't open his eyes. Dean closes the door.

They take him to his room.

Dean pulls back the covers and Sam lowers Cas, his arm shifting up from Cas's back so that he can cradle his head as he lays him down. Dean pulls the angel's legs straight and takes his shoes off. Sam shifts the blankets up over him, hands lingering to brush his arm and his cheek, wiping away a stray tear. "Sleep, Cas. Just go to sleep."


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I like to pretend Bobby never died and other inaccuracies._

* * *

Cas doesn't heal right away. Doesn't heal at all. Won't stop seizing periodically.

"It's eating at my grace," Cas says, when he wakes and they realize it's not going to go away. Realize they don't have a clue what it's doing or how to fix it. "Tearing it away little by little." He says it so easily. So straightforwardly. With only the barest hint of sadness in his eyes and voice—buried beneath pain.

"What'll that do to you? If it eats it all?" Sam asks because Dean can't.

"I _am_ my grace," Cas says, and his voice jerks and his arms jerks and his eyes roll and he's seizing again.

Sam drowns himself in research. Dean just drowns.

"Can you lift your head a little?" he asks, trying to get some water into Cas because Cas is losing his grace and as far as Dean knows fluids are good for sick and dying—fluids are good.

"I'm… trying." Cas's head is twitching forward, eyes fluttering open and closed and open and he's panting way too heavily.

"Breathe, Cas." Dean runs a hand over his chest, trying to help his lungs settle into a more normal pattern. He moves his shoulder and arm up, shifting Cas's head and pulling up his own hand. "Okay. Don't worry about it, I got you." He lifts Cas's head carefully upright and tips the cup to his lips, "Just swallow this for me."

Cas gets most of it down. He falls asleep again and Dean lays him carefully back down. He heads out and finds Sam.

"I called Rowena," Sam says.

Dean's head lifts just a fraction, almost-hopeful. "Yeah?"

Sam shakes his head. "She'll keep looking."

Dean goes out to clear his head. There's dried blood outside where Cas was shot. Dean stares at it for a moment. And then he slaps himself on the head and runs back inside. He races to the library because that's where Sam is.

"They know where we live," he blurts. "We're such idiots."

Sam snaps his book closed. "They'll be missing us by now."

"Yeah, I know. They could get here any second." Dean searches his pockets. He throws the keys at Sam. "You get the car, I'll get Cas."

Dean marches to his room and packs a duffel that he throws over his shoulder, then he marches back to the angel's room and up to the bed. Cas is asleep. Dean pulls the blankets down and starts to scoot Cas closer to the edge of the bed in preparation to lift him.

Cas's eyes start fluttering, his limbs jerking like he's trying to fight.

"Just me." Dean folds Cas's arms over his chest and slides an arm beneath his back, another beneath his legs, already pulling him up.

"Dean," Cas slurs, eyes closed, head lolling against Dean's shoulder as the Winchester lifts him. His hands and breaths are shaking. "Sam okay?"

"Sam's fine."

"Okay." Cas's head goes still; limp against Dean. He's out again.

Dean tilts his head down and rests it over Cas's mop of dark hair. To keep the angel's head from rolling or flopping back. Sure. He heads out the car.

Sam is already there, throwing things into the back, looking up at Dean's footsteps. He hurries around to open the car door for him.

Dean shuffles past him, carefully arranging Cas into the backseat. He forgot a blanket.

"Is he okay?" Sam's whispering to him, voice concerned, "Didn't he wake up?"

Dean slips out of the car, patting Sam on the chest, "Just long enough to ask if Sam was okay."

Sam shakes his head, shoulders falling.

Dean sighs. He closes the door, hand lingering on the frame, "He's getting weaker fast. We've got to fix this faster."

He runs back inside and grabs a blanket. Five minutes later, they're driving away. They'll come back if they can. After Cas is fixed and they're more prepared to deal with the looming threat of—Dean has run out of insults. Screw them anyway, the Winchesters will be back.

They pull up to a motel a few hours later. They settle Cas into one of the beds and get to work.

Dean glances at his phone and realizes he's missed a call. He listens to the voice mail and then tells Sam, "Bobby called back."

"And?"

"Something about the cores of demons and angels being incompatible." His head tilts down as he glares at the book in front of him. "Violently incompatible. That's all he got."

Dean wants to keep them moving. Can't seem to settle anywhere. Sam doesn't comment on it. They pull up to another motel and Sam tilts forward and climbs out. He throws a wallet at Dean. "You get the room, I'll get Cas," he says, beating Dean to the punch for the first time in three days.

Dean is back before Sam's even gotten him.

Sam opens the back door and bends down, sliding an arm beneath Cas's back, starting to slide him out.

Cas's eyes flutter. His head lolls backward as it comes off the seat and Sam adjusts to pull it onto his shoulder. "Wha…" Cas murmurs, but his eyes don't open. His hands twitch.

"It's Sam, Cas. You're okay." Sam pulls the angel's legs out and stands.

Cas's eyelids flutter. "Sam?"

"Yeah," Sam says softly.

Cas's hands twitch, curling just slightly in the fabric of Sam's shirt. "Dean okay?"

Sam closes his eyes. "Yeah," he says, and he hides the wobble well. "Dean's okay."

"'Kay," Cas breathes. And then his eyelids still and he somehow goes even more limp.

Sam shoves the car door closed.

Dean opens the motel door and Sam moves in to place Cas carefully on the farthest bed, Dean rushing to pull the blankets back before he does.

Dean drapes the blankets over Cas.

"Dean, he barely wakes up anymore," Sam whispers. "I don't know how much time we have. We have to do something now. Maybe call another angel."

Dean shakes his head. "Cas doesn't know the antidote. I don't see why other angels would."

"Maybe they could heal him."

"Who?" Dean's head twists up. "They hate him."

"We have to do something, Dean."

"I know," Dean growls, shoulders falling. "Dammit, I know."

"It was demon blood, right? So let's ask a demon."

Dean picks at his teeth with his tongue and shakes his head. "Crowley doesn't know. He's working on it. Rowena's working. Bobby's working. Everyone's… we'll get something. We will. We have to."

"Dean," Sam murmurs, and pulls him away a little. "He's dying."

Dean shakes his head harder. "He's just weak. He could pull through."

Sam sighs but doesn't argue. "We tried holy water…"

Dean nods. "Yeah."

"Devil's trap wouldn't do crap. Salt wouldn't do crap."

Dean rubs his hand over his mouth and stares at the floor.

"All we know is how to fight things. Not cure them."

Cas starts shaking on the bed. Seizing weakly. Dean runs over to brace him, Sam just behind. "You're okay. You're okay. You're okay." Tears roll down Cas's face, though he doesn't wake. "You'll be okay." Dean keeps murmuring even though both siblings doubt Cas is hearing him.

When it's over, Sam straightens and murmurs, "Maybe the men of letters know."

Dean sets his jaw hard and fast. "They did this to him."

"So they can undo it. We'll capture one… we… we'll storm the place. One of your stupid ideas, huh? Come on." Sam's throat bobs. "Come on."

Dean nods slowly. He rubs his forehead. "Right. Call Bobby. Have him meet us some place, we'll leave Cas with him and then...we'll figure somethin' out."

"Right."

Bobby meets them halfway the next day. He opens the motel door and they walk in, Sam carrying Cas. Bobby points him to the bed by the wall. Sam lays Cas down, hands lingering. "Um… you just…" Sam fiddles with the blankets, looking at Cas and not Bobby. "You need to make sure he doesn't roll off the bed or anything, when he seizes, you know? But he's been pretty weak, so he's not likely to do that again. Uh… we should probably move the bed a little farther from the wall so he doesn't hit it. And if you can get some water into him..." Sam rubs at his forehead, then adjusts the blankets over Cas, pulling them a little higher, smoothing them down. "But he… he hasn't woken today, so you might need to do an iv line."

"Sam. I got 'im. You go save him."

"Yeah." Sam's voice is ragged.

Dean sighs. "Just keep him alive, Bobby. We'll be quick as we can."

"Go, you idjits."

"Sam," Dean calls.

"Bye, Cas. We'll be right back. Bobby'll watch over you."


	4. Chapter 4

To say the warehouse type place they were held in is abandoned would be a massive understatement. The place is just gone. Like they burned it to the ground and then cleared out the ashes and then planted a meadow over where it used to be gone.

"Sure this is the place?" Dean asks, frowning at the flowers and grass and weeds.

Sam nods. "One hundred percent."

"Swell." Dean shifts his stance a little. "One hundred percent?" he asks, doubtful.

"Yeah." Sam nods again. "It is, err, _was_ here."

Dean takes a few steps forward, kicking through the dirt and weeds, almost like he expects to find a secret opening in the ground where the building rises up. He almost thinks he might. "There was a parking lot here, Sam."

"I know, Dean." Sam starts wandering around just like Dean, staring at the ground and surrounding countryside.

Dean kicks at the dirt. "What, were we hallucinating?"

Sam cants his head. It reminds Dean of Cas so Dean jerks his head down to stare at the dirt again.

"Might've been," Sam says. He takes a few more steps, sighing as he glares around. "Or maybe they found a witch or something, had her undo all this somehow, cover their tracks."

Dean rubs at his forehead. "What the hell are we supposed to do now?"

"One of Bobby's old hunting buddies said they have another base, remember?"

Dean kicks the dirt. "Sam, that's seven states away," he growls.

"I know, Dean."

"Cas doesn't have that kind of time."

Sam hesitates, but he meet's Dean's gaze. "He might if we take a plane."

Dean's head tilts back to find heaven as he runs a hand over his mouth. He nods after only half a moment. "Yeah. Yeah, let's get it done. We'll have to borrow some supplies when we get there. Book us a flight, Sammy, let's go."

Massachusetts is just as crappy as Dean is expecting it to be, not that he notices much of it.

It's a house. Just a normal suburban type house, green grass and a bike leaning against the garage and a minivan parked out front. "One hundred percent, Sammy?"

Sam nods just once. "One hundred percent."

Dean checks his gun again. "You good?" he asks, flicking a glance sideways.

"Yeah." Sam has a face of determination. One hundred percent.

Dean turns back to look at the house. "We know how many we're up against?"

"No more than a dozen, they don't think."

"Who was that contact again?"

Sam's eyebrows pinch. "Bobby wouldn't say."

Dean nods. Cas doesn't have time for them to sit and linger. Dean can't bear to wait any longer. He shoves the car door open. "They're probably watching us right now. Let's just get this done."

Dean can't lose Cas again. He just can't. He's so sick of losing people. So tired of it. There's a hole in his gut and it's filled with something toxic at the idea of Cas dying in pain because of some screwed up high and mighty hunters that skew the line between monster and not monster into a circle that only has room for humans. Sons of bitches, the lot of them. Dean is tired of it.

"Dean?" Sam is staring at him, something akin to concern on his face. It's hard to find with all that grief masking it.

Dean's face is set in stone. "Yeah, Sammy, let's go. You think R and D will be up or down?"

"Down, I think."

"Ten minutes to scope it out, then we go in. And I don't wanna lose you in there, Sam, so no splitting up. Stay close."

Sam just nods.

It doesn't fit. This stupid suburbia house. There should patches of dead grass and ant piles and rotting wood and something that indicates there are monsters living inside, that even the earth is unsettled by their presence. The only thing unsettled is Dean.

There are no window wells down to a basement, no patches of dirt to signal where they were covered up. All the neighboring houses have window wells. Speaking of which, they might need to be concerned about somebody calling the police. Dean makes an effort to conceal his gun in his jacket a little more, not quite willing to let go of it. "Nothing, Sam. We gotta go in blind and they'll see us coming a mile away."

Entering the house is straightforward. There are barriers of salt and iron and modern locks but that crap can't hold their wrath at bay.

The first thing they do is run around breaking every window they can find. Two reasons—to draw the bastards out and to plant a minefield of glass that'll place where people are in the house.

Then they simply crawl through one.

Not one soul has appeared. No pounding footsteps on the stairs, no alarms sounding, no guns aimed at their hearts. Not a single person, not a single sound.

Dean's not sure this is the place. He'll rip it apart anyway. Basement first.

There is no basement.

"Dean," Sam says, not for the first time, "It's not here."

Dean kicks the wall, then runs his fingers back along it, looking for hidden passages, for levers, for something. "One hundred percent, Sam. You said one hundred percent. And I believe you, it's here. It is here. It has to be." They don't have time for it not to be.

"Dean—"

"Shut up." Dean pounds across the floor again, listening for trap doors and feeling for hollow spaces.

Sam shuts up. And then he leaves. He frickin' leaves.

Dean falls to his knees.

Sam comes back with an axe and Dean hurriedly moves his hands out to feel along the floor. He can tell from Sam's sidelong look that he's not buying it.

Dean ignores the look, blinking a few times because his vision is blurring. He keeps inching out across the floor, searching. "Tear it up, Sammy. We'll find them. One hundred percent, I guarantee it. We'll find and gank those mother-" Pain slams into Dean's skull and jolts its way down his spine. He groans as he goes down.

"Dean!" Sam shouts.

Before Dean even has a chance to get up, something cracks against his skull and the world goes black.

He wakes to the ground shifting beneath him, the cold feel of metal up against his arm where he's laying on it. He opens his eyes, but there's fabric over his face and he can't see through it. "Sam?"

There's no response and Dean has to carefully maintain his breathing. His hands are bound behind him but he pushes up. "Sammy?"

His head is throbbing.

"Dean?" Sam asks.

Dean breathes out in relief. "You okay? You hurt?"

"I'm okay. You?"

"Peachy." Dean falls back over as the ground stops moving. A car. They're in a car. A truck. He pushes up again. "We screwed up." And Cas will die because of it. Dean swallows hard. "We screwed up."

"Dean—"

There's a pop and crack and then the car is skittering over the road, slamming Dean into the metal side of it before fishtailing to a stop.

Dean struggles to get his hands free. His legs are unbound but his boot knife is gone. "Sam?"

"What was that?"

A loud screech and whine tells them the door is being opened. "Sam, Dean, are you okay?"

Dean shakes his head to clear his ears because he's hearing things.

"Mom?" Sam asks.

Thumps and thuds of a form coming into the truck and approaching them. "I got there just a minute too late, I'm so sorry."

"Mom?" The doubt is clear in Dean's tone. The thuds approach him and he angles his head back until it hits the wall.

"Yeah, sweetheart, it's me."

"The hell are you doing here?"

Hands untie the mask around Dean's head and pull it off. Dean blinks to clear his vision.

Mary's eyes are a little too wary. "Helping," she says.

Dean frowns.

Mary eyes flick quickly away. She moves to unveil Sam.

"No, seriously."

Mary's throat bobs. "Bobby called me," she says. "Come on, we've gotta go before the rest catch up." She cuts through the binds around Sam's wrists and then hands him the knife. "Help your brother, I'll pull the car up."

Sam is almost frowning. He cuts Dean free and they head out of the car just as a Dodge Ram pulls up, Mary driving. "Get in."

Dean gets in the front, Sam in the back.

"Mom?" Dean asks, not entirely sure what he wants to be asking.

Mary doesn't say anything.

"How'd you find us?" Dean asks.

"Bobby told me the place you were going to. I got there just in time to see them drag you away, drove ahead, set up some spikes to blow their tires."

Dean hums, doubt coiling his insides for reasons he can't quite place.

Sam leans forward. "What are you even doing here?"

"I was in town," Mary says vaguely.

Dean is waking up more and more. He wonders how much time they lost. Wonders where Mary is headed. He twists around, looking behind them like can see the truck they were in even though they've taken three turns already. "What happened to whoever was driving us? Do you know where they were going? He's gotta know where the real facility is, maybe he even knows how to help Cas. Mom, you have to go back, we can-"

"Dean, sweetie, you don't have to worry about that anymore."

"Like hell," Dean starts, his fear bristling into anger. "Cas is—"

"Dean." Mary cuts him off, eyes on the road. "We got it, okay? I slipped into the real facility already."

Dean squints at her.

Sam frowns. "What?"

"I got it."

"How?" Dean asks, something burning in his gut. "How'd you know where it was? How'd you get in? Why didn't you call us?"

"I needed you at that house."

"Mom," Dean demands, voice dark.

Her shoulders lift just a little, fingers tapping. "You were the distraction," she says, straightforward and blunt.

Rage rolls through Dean. He's glad to be a distraction any goddamn day of the week, but not when it's blind, not when it's someone else's twisted game, using and manipulating him. And Sam. They could've been killed instead of captured. Red fills his vision. "And you couldn't tell us that?!"

Mary just shrugs. "They were watching you. Couldn't risk it."

Dean glares. "But you told Bobby."

Mary won't even look at him. Dean wishes he knew her well enough to read her. He doesn't. He hates that he doesn't. She's a stranger to him, this mother come back from the dead. She's not the one he remembers.

"I got the antidote," she says, eyes flicking over her shoulder as she switches lanes, "or the ingredient list, anyway. You're really gonna get mad about how?"

"Yes," Sam says. Firmly. "The how matters, mom. It matters a whole damn lot. Next time, bring us in on the plan."

Dean's twisting in his seat, tilting worriedly. "You got it to Bobby, right? He give it to Cas already? Do you know?"

Mary keeps her eyes on the road. "Called him the moment I got it."

"And?"

Mary shrugs a shoulder. "He has to get the ingredients first."

Dean hates that they're seven states away and can't do anything to help. Hates that mom and Bobby lied to them like idiots because there were a whole lot of ways that plan could've gone South and all of them end with people dead. People he can't bear to be see dead again.

"So," says Sam, calm somehow, trying not to make the tension in the car burst into flames. "We gonna drive this all the way back?"

"No," Dean says, face stone, staring out the front window. "We're taking a plane."


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Sorry this update took so long._

* * *

"I want our bunker back." Dean is sitting on one of the motel beds, watching Sam heave Cas up to sitting so he can eat. He's more human than angel right now, getting better at an agonizingly slow pace.

But getting better. Even his grace is making a recovery. Or so Cas says.

It took two days just for him to wake up after the first dose of 'antidote'— an angel blood transfusion in disguise and they're lucky Bobby managed to summon the one dick that doesn't hate Cas's guts. Someone named Benjamin.

Mary left after that. Bobby too.

Sam keeps an arm at Cas's back, holding him up. "I know you do, Dean. But the bunker's gonna have to wait a while."

Cas isn't shaking anymore, thank god. Not from that demon blood crap anyway. His hand still shakes from weakness as he pulls the spoon to his mouth, glaring at the applesauce and bananas like they're an affront to his nature. They kind of are. Cas shrugs off Sam's support and slowly starts tilting toward the wall until he's propped up against it, and then he can't lift his arm because it's stuck between him and the wall and he has to switch the spoon to the other hand.

"You take your dose today?" Dean asks.

Cas nods. He doesn't have much of a voice yet. It comes out raw and strained and just as weak as the rest of him, so he avoids talking for the most part.

Dean glances at Sam. Sam nods in confirmation.

Dean turns back to Cas. "Pain?"

Cas shrugs a little, glaring at the food. "Fine," he rasps. "Better." And he brings another bite up to his mouth, swallowing hard.

Dean hums. He watches Cas for another minute. Can't stop watching. His fingers tap on his leg. "I want our bunker back."

"It'll have to wait," Sam repeats.

"Why?"

Sam's eyes roll over to Cas.

"He's fine. He can hang out in the motel for a day."

Sam shakes his head. "It can wait."

Dean sighs, form slumping a little more. He watches Cas take another bite and a grimace crawls over the angel's face. Dean frowns. "Can't we give him some soup or something? I mean anything's better than that crap."

"I told you, his stomach can't handle anything heavier."

"It can handle soup. You want soup, Cas?"

Cas doesn't respond. Just glares down at his food. He doesn't want to eat anything at all, that much is clear.

Sam gives his brother a look. "Do you want to clean the throw up, Dean?"

Dean huffs. He shoves to his feet. "I'm making him soup."

"There's no kitchen."

"I'm buying him soup," Dean amends, and grabs his jacket, wallet, and keys. "You don't have to eat that crap, Cas. I'll be back in like twenty or thirty minutes."

The music doesn't blare on when Dean starts the car. Because Cas is constantly tired, and he sleeps while they drive and Dean keeps it off. Now Dean turns it on and twists the volume up.

When he gets back, there's a car there that wasn't there before. Dean pays it no mind until he gets out of the impala and there are dark red drops leading from their motel room door to the car. Blood drops. He sets the soup down and pulls his gun, approaching cautiously.

The door is a pain and you have to really push it open because the carpet is too tall. Dean keeps his gun up and shoves against it and then he can see the intruders.

One of them is standing over Cas and another two are keeping Sam down in the corner of the room.

Sam is bleeding from a cut at his hairline. He's breathing heavily as he looks up at Dean, eyes dark. There's a gun pressed into his temple.

Dean stutters to a stop, face blank. He has the gun in his hands and aims it slow and deliberate, staring at the man over Cas because he looks like the guy in charge.

Cas is still on the bed. He's leaning back against the wall, glaring at anything and everything, carefully watching the man's hands—more specifically the gun moving around. He's running on human right now and Dean doesn't doubt the weapon could do some serious damage. Could kill him.

"I'm gonna give you one chance," Dean says. "Get out now."

"One chance." The man hums. He has an accent. A British accent. "That's cute. Here's what I'm gonna do—now keep in mind that if you shoot me, Sam dies. I'm gonna—" His hand wrenches forward and grabs a fistful of Cas's collar and yanks him off the bed. Cas hits the floor hard on his side and coughs, hands grasping at the man's arm, fighting him. The man shoves the gun in his face.

Dean's jaw sets so hard that it almost cracks. "What do you want?"

"I already have it. Feel free to leave. In fact, I'm telling you to." He pushes Cas down harder. "Leave."

"No, thanks." Dean doesn't move an inch.

The man's head turns to the corner Sam is in. "That's your cue, girls."

One of them has a Glock. They cock it.

Dean wavers, almost shifting to aim over there instead. "Don't."

The man turns back to look at him. "Drive away, Dean. We'll send you a postcard."

Sam is mouthing something.

Dean doesn't move.

The man lifts his eyebrows. "No?" He looks down at Cas. "Guess it was _my_ cue, then." His finger tightens on the trigger.

"Don't."

"I don't want to, see, because we need him. But that's not to say I can't do some damage. I'll start by blasting his fingers off one at a time. Think his angel grace can fix that? Huh? When he's already half dead?" The man moves his knee to Cas's chest, keeping him pinned much too easily, his eyes flicking up to the corner. "Or maybe we'll start by gouging out Sammy's eyes."

Dean hisses out a breath through his teeth, trying to gage how likely the man is to follow through. Too likely. Dean shifts back toward the door a little. "I'm leaving, alright? Don't touch them."

Dean takes a careful step back, and then another, slow, looking for an opening because he can't actually leave. Not like this.

He almost gets it when Cas shoves at the gun in his face. It's not enough, though, because Sam is still dead if Dean shoots. The man hits Cas with the barrel of the gun in retaliation, sending his head cracking back into the carpet.

"Hey," Sam snaps, and he gets hit over the head too, his form jerking to the side but staying upright.

Dean stops, gun wavering because he wants to shoot so bad.

Cas is still moving—not knocked out, at least. But he's moving slower, his face a shade paler.

The man looks back up at Dean and raises an eyebrow. He shoos him toward the door. "Go on."

"Take me instead of Sam."

"What?"

Dean takes a careful step forward, gun falling just a little to point at the man's heart instead of his head. "You want Cas because he's an angel. You don't need Sam. Take me instead."

The man shakes his head. "Now, who said we don't need Sam?"

"You don't need Sam."

"Sounds like a shitty exchange to me. You're harder to handle than Sam. No, I think I'll stick with what I have. Go before I lose the last of my patience."

Dean doesn't move.

The man cracks his gun barrel into Cas's head again and Dean just stops his finger from pulling the trigger. He doesn't quite stop his feet from jolting forward.

A gunshot snaps off the walls and Sam cries out.

Dean freezes, head spinning. Shoulder. It hit the shoulder. He'll be alright.

"Go," the man says.

Dean stalks backward.

Cas starts rasping. "Dean, there's—" The gun gets pressed up against his teeth and he stops, throat moving.

Sam is mouthing words again.

Dean flicks his gaze between them. He takes another careful step back, not sure what they're warning him about. Not to leave? Maybe they know something he doesn't about this guy's plans. Maybe they know they're not gonna stay alive long enough for Dean to rescue them. Dean's steps falter.

The widening of Sam's eyes is the only warning he gets. Dean spins around just in time to pull back and lessen the blow as someone swings a fist at him. His balance is thrown enough that it knocks him off his feet, but he keeps hold of his gun and comes up shooting. He hits the guy in the leg and then the arm and then he stops, rolling onto his side to find Sam because Sam is screaming.

Sam is fighting the girls holding him, blood at his shoulder and head but Dean can't tell if he's hurt anywhere else because it's a tangle of torsos and limbs. "Sam?!"

"Cas!" Sam screams, and Dean's focus wrenches to the side and latches onto a syringe filled with red hovering over Cas's throat.

Cas is straining away from it, but he's still weak as hell and his struggling is barely affecting the man pinning him down.

"Missed your one chance, I think, Dean," the bastard says.

Dean shoots his hand. And then his head, and his form topples to the floor. Cas twists away and toward Dean while Dean starts firing toward Sam's corner. He hits one of the girls but can't get a clear shot at the other one and she's ducking behind Sam, wrapping an arm around his throat and aiming a gun toward his head.

Cas keeps crawling back toward Dean. Dean finds his feet and grabs Cas's arm and yanks him up, shoving him toward the door, "Get to the car, go!"

Cas staggers toward the door, falling into the frame and shoving back up, none too steady.

Dean flicks a glance to the man he nailed in the arm and leg, making sure he's still down before his eyes find Sam and stay there.

The girl is swearing. "Knew we should've just taken you all out when we had the chance."

"Let him go," says Dean. "I'll let you live."

"Like hell you will."

"I will. Limited time offer. Let him go in the next ten seconds and I will let you live."

It's the longest ten seconds of Dean's life.

She lets him go. Shoves him forward but keeps her gun up. Sam spins around to watch her.

"Okay, Sammy?"

Sam nods. He's clutching his shoulder but there's not too much blood.

"Get a gun and check on Cas," Dean tells him.

Sam grabs a dropped one off the floor—the leader's—and starts toward the door, grabbing the other downed man's gun while he's at it. He rams right into Cas coming back with his own gun. Cas's knees buckle as he collides with Sam and Sam keeps him from falling, guiding him over the threshold and down to sit against the wall, staying between him and the armed woman. She's aiming at Dean, anyway.

"That was good," Dean is saying. "Smart. Now we just gotta tie you up, leave you here while we make our getaway. Put the gun down, I won't kill you."

"Won't shoot me."

"Won't kill you."

"Won't _shoot_ me."

Dean's head bobs. "Won't maim you, how's that?"

The other man moves to get up and a second later Sam is standing over him, gun aimed squarely at his head. "Gotta tie you up too, unless you plan on trying something, in which case I am all too glad to kill you."

There aren't any sirens. And it's cruel, Dean thinks, not to warn them like that.

"Police! Come out with your hands up!"

Dean swears. He moves so he's not right in front of the open door, stepping over to stand beside Cas's slumped form against the wall, keeping his gun up and pointed at the girl.

That's when the sirens start.

Sam's head turns a little, but his eyes stay on the man bleeding in front of him. "Dean?"

"Call Bobby. You got any ID?"

Sam takes a step back toward Dean and Cas, patting down his pocket. He pulls out his phone and hands it down to Cas, then pulls a wallet from his pocket. "I've got F.B.I."

"Sweet. Go, talk us out of this. Let them know we've still got one armed hostile."

"Yeah." Sam starts talking, slipping out the door with his gun in the back of his pants and his arms up—one arm up. The one with the gunshot wound stays folded against his chest, though he flares the palm out to show that it's empty. "Don't shoot, I'm coming out…"

"Call Bobby?" Cas rasps.

"Yeah, call Bobby just in case. He's gotta field the confirmation calls to the F.B.I. office anyway."

Cas starts dialing.

Dean is trying to listen to Sam's conversation but can't make out the words. "That was a fast friggin' response time," he mutters.

"Not really," the girl says. She pulls out a badge. "And I'm Interpol, so you can put your gun down. Inter-agency across the border cooperation and all that."

"Like hell."

Cas starts rasping into the phone. "Letters showed up, police came… I don't… Dean?" God, he sounds horrible. He's handing the phone up.

Dean takes it, careful to keep his eyes on the girl and his gun aimed straight. "Bobby?"

"What's goin' on?"

"We got attacked by those British dicks. Police heard the gunshots. Sam's tryin' to F.B.I. our way out this but I'm not sure if they're gonna buy it."

"You boys okay?"

"More or less. Sam took a shot to the shoulder. Just givin' you a heads up in case we need you to come down or anything."

"Yeah." Bobby sighs. "Can't turn my back for two minutes," he mutters, and then hangs up.

Dean hands the phone back to Cas. They'll need his antidote, and if the police lock them up, Dean seriously doubts they'll let them take needles full of what's mostly blood, not without a hospital visit to prove he needs the transfusions and who knows how that would go. Even if it went well, the hospital would use their own supply. So, yeah. Can't get locked up.

Dean pats down his pockets. He doesn't have his F.B.I. badge. It's probably in the car. "Put the gun down, lady. Walk out, give yourself up. Maybe your connections can get you out. maybe you can spin the Interpol angle and claim you didn't know we were F.B.I. and that your boss there wasn't your boss but a seriously bad guy. I'm thinking arms dealer."

"And what happens when they check your story, dumbass?"

"It pans out. They can't prove he wasn't an arms dealer. They'll release us back to our own offices and we'll all be home free. And you'll tell your real bosses that if they come near us again, we take the war to them and don't stop until the great U.S. of A. is cleared out of your asshole organization, even if it means we have to hunt down and kill every single one of you."

"Because two wannabe hunters and their angel pet can take us on," she sneers.

Dean's face darkens. "Put the gun down or I'll cut my losses and kill you and your friend right now."

"I don't think you will. Police wouldn't like that. You need me alive to help confirm your story."

"Great. If you're so sure, you're safe to put your gun down, right? So put it down."

"Police!" The men outside the room shout.

"Gun. Down," Dean demands.

"You have ten seconds!"

The girl slowly sets her gun down. She slides into sight of the door, arms raised. Dean lets her pass. "Cas, can you get up?" Dean stows his gun, already bending down to help. "Come on." Dean grips him by the arms and hauls him up. He pulls Cas toward the door.

Sam is by one of the police cars, watching them, scanning to make sure they're alright. There's a medic next to him.

A few policeman in Kevlar vests are between Sam and them. "Hands up!"

Dean slows to a stop. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." He puts his hands up and Cas does the same, still propped up against Dean's side, balance precarious.

The police walk over and divest them of their weapons. They pull Cas away from Dean. "He's sick," Dean says. "Go easy."

They slam Dean over the hood of a car. "Hey, we're in the F.B.I, alright? You saw my partner's badge. Mine is just in my car. Let me grab it."

Sam is shaking his head.

"You're wanted by the F.B.I," the police officer says. "Most wanted list. We got a tip that you'd be here, and here you are. With a couple bodies to boot."

"Dammit," Dean mutters. They handcuff him. And when they pull him up, he catches sight of the British lady smirking at him, handcuff free. "Son of a bitch."

She turns. Cas is propped up against one of the police cars, pale and shaky.

"Not him," she says. "He's a civilian they took hostage, I'll take him. And the rest of my team will be by shortly for the brother. Your American agency agreed to hand him over to us for his crimes in the motherland." She smirks at Dean. "You can keep that one, though."

"You son of a bitch! Don't you touch them!"

Cas is rasping something to the officers. Dean can't quite make out what.

Dean starts talking. "Don't give him to her, she's not Interpol, she'll kill him. Wait for his family to come pick him up or something, man, after you debrief him. Don't release him to her. She is not Interpol. She's part of our crew, but she turned on us. She'll kill that guy, I swear to you. She's worse than all of us."

Sam is also talking. "Hey, he doesn't get to go off free. He's the one that pulled me into this crap. He killed that guy. I swear, if he goes off free, I'm gonna…"

In the end, they shove Cas into the back of a police car and take him with them. It buys them some time.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Weird chapter, I hope it's okay. It's been a long time since I've updated, but it's a good week and I have plans for the rest of this piece and I hope to complete it soon._

* * *

It'd be easier to say that they were locked up at the police station and Bobby came and freed Cas, that Sam and Dean escaped while being transferred to another facility. It'd be a whole lot easier.

"Dean! Dean!" Sam is screaming somewhere.

At the station, where Cas is bent over heaving because the guards refused to bring him food his stomach could handle and he's so weak that he has to eat.

"Dean!" Sam's face blurs in front of Dean's eyes, hair framing every worry line. He needs a haircut.

But that's not right. Dean can't see Sam, there's a brick wall between them. Sam is in a different too-cold cell, tiredly nursing the bullet wound to his shoulder.

"Dean, look at me."

They're at the station, waiting for Bobby to get Cas, waiting to get transferred. They must be.

"Dean!" Someone slaps the side of Dean's face. His head jolts to the side, his cheek scrapes over pavement, and his eyes blink into focus.

The bent metal frame of a police car comes into view, blue and red lights flashing, a man slumped atop the steering wheel. Sam's face, cut up and bleeding. Pavement covered in glass and car parts, and another car. Another police car with a woman screaming into her radio.

Sam's eyes flick up worriedly, looking at something behind Dean.

"Sam?"

Sam's gaze falls back down, relief clear beneath the continued tautness of his eyes. "Yeah, it's me. Get up, c'mon." He tugs at Dean's shoulder one-handed.

Dean heaves himself upright, dizzy and disoriented. One more police car comes into view, this one off the side of the road and tilted into a ditch.

Sam is still tugging at him. "All the way, all the way," he's muttering, his worried eyes fixed on something behind Dean.

The asphalt is unsteady beneath Dean's feet, threatening to tip him back over. His head spins to follow Sam's gaze over Dean's shoulder. Sam puts a hand on his neck and stops him before he can see anything.

Dean takes careful stock of everything around him, trying not to panic at Sam's wide-eyed stare. He finds one thing missing and immediately all his thinking draws to a stop. "Where's Cas?"

Sam's eyes latch back onto Dean. He looks him over and shakes his head slightly before his eyes fix back on the formless thing behind Dean. "He's behind me, he's fine. We've gotta move, can you move?"

Dean's foot skitters forward, jerking over the pavement. There's a flash, a moment where the pavement beneath him isn't pavement at all.

"Good, that's good." It's pavement again. Sam slips around to his side, supporting him more firmly. Somehow, Sam's head stays turned to watch their backs, and it's like he's watching a tsunami wave come toward them, unable to turn away.

"What is it?" Dean asks, jolting forward another step.

"Nothing. It's nothing." Sam's head finally turns to face frontward, but there's a tightness to the muscles of his shoulders and back. He's bracing for something.

Dean finds himself bracing as well. "Where's Cas?" he asks again, still not sure it isn't Cas dead behind them, torn apart in some macabre splatter of organs and limbs.

But the arm Sam is favoring moves automatically to point up to the left. "He's in the ditch."

There are skid marks on the road. That car swerved to avoid something, maybe the crash of the other car. But what did the other car crash into?

Dean pulls away from Sam, tilting his weight toward the wrecked car with a grimace. "Go get him."

Sam is limping, Dean realizes, as he moves around Dean and toward the car run off the road.

Dean twists around to look at whatever is behind them.

It's a tank. An army tank. Dean blinks, sure he's not seeing correctly. The tank stays. "Sam, what the-"

Sam is in the ditch, standing haphazardly, trying to help Cas drop the five feet safely.

Dean stares at the tank while he leans against the wreckage of the other car. "What the hell?"

The police woman is still screaming into her radio. "The army, get the army, where's the army?!"

Dean blinks and then Crowley is standing right beside the tank. "You owe me, squirrel."

"Crowley, what the hell?" Dean's arm twinges when it flies up to point at the green monstrosity. "Is that yours?"

Crowley looks up at it. "A little gift from some of my government friends up top." He scowls. "They were supposed to paint it black."

Sam grunts off to Dean's side and Dean looks to find him and Cas on the ground trying to help each other back up.

Dean scans the rest of the area, but he can't find what he's looking for. "Where'd the British lady go?"

Crowley looks down at a piece of twisted metal by his feet. There's a lot of scattered parts. Too many for just the one police car.

"You didn't."

Crowley shrugs. "Tank," he says unhelpfully.

Dean pushes off the car he's leaning against, straightening as well as he can while his ribs and back protest. "What the hell are you doing here, Crowley?"

"Your surrogate father summoned me." Crowley's voice fades in and out.

The world has gone fuzzy. Dean can't feel the car beneath his hand, can't feel the pavement beneath his feet.

"Dean!" Sam is screaming somewhere.

At the station. The police station. In a too-cold cell, with Cas heaving on the other side of the wall.

No, that's not right. Where are they?

"Dean?" Sam is helping Cas out of the ditch, Crowley is smirking, a woman is screaming, a tank is sitting in the road.

But that's not right either.

"It's not here."

Dean spins on his feet, dislodging the dirt he's standing in, ribs no longer aching, all signs of the wreckage gone.

Sam is across the grass of a meadow, frowning down. "It's not here."

"What's not?"

"The parking lot." Sam straightens up to stand and Dean's world tilts sideways.

Wood and a rug beneath Sam's fingers, a not-hollow floor beneath them. "The basement." Sam stands again. "There's no basement."

And then they're in one, with dim lights and a stone floor. Through two layers of bars, a pile of fabric on the floor is shaking. Cas. Cas is shaking.

Dean pulls the syringe from his arm and swears.

"Dean?" Sam is holding a man pinned against the bars. The man who just stabbed Dean in the arm. Back in the men of letters facility.

The bars spin away and there's wreckage in front of Dean's eyes, a tank standing on top. He blinks and moves and his ribs pull and his head spins and he's falling. He scrapes his hands on the pavement and then Sam is screaming again. Still. Dean brings a hand up to his head, wondering if it's bleeding. His fingers come back clean. "Where are we? Sam, where are we?"

The world spins again and Dean throws up, not sure if it's dirt or asphalt or concrete or wood beneath his hands and knees.

"Dean?" That's not Sam's voice. That's gritty and raspy and deep. That's Cas.

"Cas, where are we?"

Dirt or asphalt or concrete or wood.

Sam is screaming for someone to stop.

Dirt, asphalt, concrete, wood.

"Cas?"

None of the above. It's carpet. Too-tall carpet. And the door is scraping against it trying to open. Cas is on the bed, Sam is on his knees. All Dean can see is the guns to their heads. The gun in his own hand is solid and heavy, and somewhere behind him a bowl of soup lays abandoned.

"Don't worry," someone says. That's all they say.

Fingers press against Dean's forehead and he's on his hands and knees on the pavement again. The tank is gone. It's the British car now, looming in its place. Cas's worried face floats in front of Dean.

"Where are we?" Dean asks.

"Earth."

The huff of almost laughter is followed by a weak smile. "Thanks, Cas."

"You are welcome, Dean." The angel's voice is raspy and thin. It sounds horrible.

The tank is back.

Sam is back too. "Dean?" He's everywhere. "Cas, what's wrong with him?"

Cas pulls back and the fingers retreat. "It is not his injuries affecting him like this. I don't know what it is." The angel is slumped against the wreckage of the police car, just past the puddle of sick. Heaving. Cas is heaving, because the guards at the police station brought food too dense for his stomach to handle.

"No, you wouldn't, would you." It's Crowley, and at the same time, it's female. A female voice. A tank and not a tank. The British car, the car for British people, the British people car.

The pavement is dirt, the sky is a wall.

"Sam, where are we?"

"Uh..." Sam is tugging at Dean where he's kneeling and making him sit, squinting at his eyes.

No. No, Sam is the one kneeling. Looking for a parking lot. For a basement. In a motel room with a gun to his head.

"I forgot, actually. West of Kansas, East of Utah."

Dean and Cas are matched breath for breath, both panting. Sam's not doing much better. "Inside or outside?" Dean asks, because he can't tell.

"Outside."

The meadow, then. Or the road. Dirt or asphalt. They spin around each other. One moment Dean is tilted against the wreckage of a car, the next moment the wreck is gone and the sun is high where it was low. The floor jerks out from beneath him and he lands face first on the concrete of a cell. Outside. Sam said outside. Dirt or asphalt, must be.

Dean grabs Sam's shoulders, feeling him but not quite seeing him. "What's the floor, the ground? What's the floor? Where are we?"

Sam's arm moves up to grab onto Dean's wrist. "It's... it's pavement. A road. We're outside."

"Is there a tank?"

"Uh... No. No, there's no tank. You see a tank?" Sam's hand presses against Dean's forehead. And then two fingers press at his neck, checking his pulse no doubt.

The world is still splitting, trying to convince Dean he's somewhere else. Walls and bars and bricks and sky. "Is Crowley here?"

"No," Sam says. "You sure it's not his head, Cas? He probably hit it when we crashed."

"We crashed? Where'd we crash? Who-who crashed?" Dean can't remember a crash. Wreckage, yes, but no crash. And no tank, Sam said no tank.

"I'm sure," Cas rasps.

"The police cars?" Dean asks. Sirens sound, lights flash, and someone screams.

Cas presses two fingers to Dean's head again. "Perhaps it's a spell."

Dean fists his fingers in Sam's shirt. "Sammy, was it police cars? Did they crash? Were we in them?"

"It was cruisers, Dean, alright? You got it right." Sam is kneeling somewhere, hair framing a face full of worry lines. "We were in the police cruisers and they crashed. Well, yours did, anyway. Cas's went into the ditch. You remember?"

"We hit a tank? Crowley's tank?"

Sam shakes his head, something like laughter flitting over his eyes. "No, we didn't hit a tank. Another car rammed you." His head turns away. Turns to Cas, to the shaking pile of fabric in the other cell. "You said this might be a spell?" His voice fades out.

Cas is screaming. Shaking and seizing and screaming.

Dean blinks, the walls spin, and then suddenly he's on paved asphalt again. "Where are the policemen?" This doesn't make sense.

Sam looks chagrined. His shoulder is bleeding. Why is his shoulder bleeding?

A shot echoes off the walls and Sam screams. Blood drips onto the too-tall carpet.

"The one driving you hit his head in the crash. Cas's too. I, uh... I convinced mine to let me out to help and...anyway, she's out too."

Nothing makes sense. "There were more than three. And where's the men of letters lady?"

Sam pats Dean's arm. "You missed the fight. Me and Cas got her."

"Weren't more coming?"

Sam is everywhere. Across from him, beside him, on the other side of a wall. He's in Dean's space too, patting down his pockets and pulling something out.

Sam throws it across the room. The meadow. Through the bars of a cell. "A hex bag. Who the hell planted a hex bag on him?"

Cas responds, voice thin and frail. "My guess would be a woman of letters."

"Did she get that close to him?"

"When she walked out the doorway he was standing right next to it."

"She had her hands up, though," Sam says.

Cas frowns. Somewhere else, he grunts, the barrel of a gun shoved at his teeth. "Doesn't matter. We need to burn it."

Sam nods. "Lucky for us, that car's on fire."

Dean shakes his head at that, trying hard to catch back up. "There's no fire."

Sam moves. Stands. In the meadow with no parking lot, in the house with no basement, in the road with- "There's no tank, either. We're not exactly trusting your eyes right now." He limps across the wherever they are and grabs something off the whatever it is. He throws it again.

The world spins one last time and then stops abruptly.

Dean throws up again. Pavement, asphalt, it's pavement.

Sam limps back. Blood at his shoulder, cuts on his face. No, not cuts. Just breaks in the skin like he was hit by something.

"What happened?"

Sam bends down to hoist at Dean's arms. "We'll fill you in later, alright. Do you feel okay?"

"I feel awesome." Dizziness is making the world go fuzzy again. Dean closes his eyes, too nauseous to look at it. He has to open them again a second later when Sam drags him forward. His feet skitter over the pavement. This is familiar, they've been here before. "Where's Cas?" Dean asks.

"He's behind us, he's fine."

The woman's not screaming. She's on the ground outside the car, the door wide open behind her. Sam tugs Dean over to the car, opens the back door, and shoves him into the seat.

Dean finds the world beneath his fingers. A car, he's in a car, a police cruiser. He can feel the seats, see the partition, see Sam limping as he helps Cas across the road. Dean takes stock of himself. His ribs ache, his head throbs, his back feels bruised, and his wrist hurts.

Sam drops Cas onto the seat next to Dean and then limps around to the driver's side. He gets into the seat awkwardly, like it pains him.

Dean frowns. "I can drive, Sammy."

Sam's hurt arm stays folded against his side. His good arm. "Ha, ha, ha. Like I'm gonna let the guy who's hallucinating drive."

"You burned the hex bag, I'm good."

Sam shakes his head. "Let's give it half an hour to kick in first, alright?"

Outside the window, everything blurs.

* * *

Dean wakes up to a squeak and when he moves the surface beneath him gives. A cot, bouncing beneath his weight. An anvil of pressure in Dean's head crashes into fading memories of the world spinning from one room to another.

Bars and thick walls meet Dean's eyes. The police station.

"Sam? Sam, you here?"

"Yeah," Sam says, a faceless voice on the other side of a wall.

Dean can feel the fabric of the cot, the coarseness of the thin blanket, and the cold of the concrete. But he can't be sure. Can't trust his eyes. "Where are we?"

Sam's hesitation only adds to Dean's worry. "...You don't remember?"

"Just humor me, okay?"

"County lockup. Waiting for an armored truck or something so we can be taken off the face of the earth and interrogated."

The cot squeaks when Dean moves, getting up to look around. To feel the walls and the floor. "Is Cas here?"

"You mean that guy we supposedly took hostage? No. Gruff old man came and got him. Dean, seriously, you don't remember this?" Sam's voice becomes clearer, like he turned to face Dean, or his cell, at least.

"Bear with me." Cold, solid slab for a floor. It's cracked, and Dean bends down to feel it. "Did we crash on the way here?"

Sam starts using the voice he uses on victims, careful and kind. "Dean, are you okay? Did you hit your head? Pass out?"

"_Did we crash_?" Dean asks, almost tearing his finger on the crack as he rips his hand violently away.

"No."

"Are you hurt? How-how hurt are you?" Dean himself can't feel any outstanding pain besides the throbbing of his skull. The room twists, or maybe he does, and he ends up on the floor against the wall.

"Gunshot wound to the shoulder." Sam moves in his cell, Dean can hear it. The murmur of cloth, the squeak of a cot, the patter of a step on a cold slab of a floor. "Dean, what's going on?"

"I don't know yet. Give me a second, Sammy." Dean looks intently around the cell, searching for any indication that he isn't where he sees and feels himself to be. Any sign of the supernatural. The cells are cold, but not breath-fogging-the-air-because-there's-a-ghost cold. The world is solid and clear and Dean decides after a few more minutes to mostly assume that it was a dream. Mostly.

"Some gruff old man got that other guy?"

"Yeah," Sam breathes, and from the sound of it he's only just resisting the urge to ask something.

Bobby. Dean remembers that now. Cas, puking his guts out in another cell because the guards brought food too dense for him to eat. Not getting worse, but not getting better. Bobby playing agent to get Cas out. Hopefully, he'll keep him safe and help him heal 'til Dean and Sam work their way out of this mess.

"They comin' for you?" Dean asks. "British dicks want to take you 'across the pond'?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "Dean, what-"

The crack in the floor disappears.

Dean watches it disappear. His hand slaps out and meets a cold, solid floor, but he feels dirt somehow, slipping between his fingers though he can't see it. "Where are we? Sam, one more time, where are we?"

"County lockup, Dean." Sam's voice fades out.

And then back in, and the wall disappears and Dean can see him. "It's not here," Sam says, and stands. "It's not here." Dirt and grass are crushed as he walks. "The facility's not here, but it was. It _was._ I swear, Dean, it was here."

Blue sky melts into a gray ceiling and the police station reforms.

"Dean?"

Dean breathes out shakily but doesn't let it affect his voice. "Yeah, Sammy?"

"Did you hear me?"

The cot is against the wall, the crack is back in the floor. "Hear what?"

"Dean," Sam says, and something in his voice refuses to be placed. "Dean, I think I'm seeing things."

When Cas appears, Dean doesn't take notice. He's seeing Cas everywhere. He's hearing him, looking for him, watching him shake on the floor and the bed and in the car.

He doesn't appear alone, though, which is different. Doesn't just _appear_, either. He walks through the door.

Stumbles, actually, one hand white-knuckling the door knob and forgetting to let go and making his whole body roll backwards as he tries to come in. It takes a real effort for him to unwrap his fingers and when he finally does, he falls from the force of it, or maybe from the loss of support. A frantic woman in uniform skitters in after him. When Cas touches her, she falls too.

Cas is shaking. Tremors in his hand when he moves to push up, weakness making his legs and arms struggle. He's trying to stand when he can't even sit straight.

Something is missing from this picture but Dean can't figure out what it is. Something about Cas's hand pressing against the-

There's no floor.

The angel's legs refuse to work, that much is clear. They won't hold him, won't even lift him.

Someone appears in the doorway behind him, looming like a tank with their shotgun aimed and ready to blast, ready to flatten Cas with the force of it.

Cas holds his hands up, palms out, fingers twitching in the air. He's shaking, always shaking. "I mean you no harm, I'm only here for my friends."

"What'd you do to Wally? To the rest of them? You diseased or something?"

The voice is new too. A new voice, one Dean doesn't recognize or remember. He finds himself sitting a little straighter, sliding a little closer. Something is real, one of these scenes is probably real. It might just be this one.

But then the walls climb away to reveal sky and the ground is moving. A car, maybe. But no, it's grass and flowers and they're moving. The ground slides out from beneath Dean and he falls on his back into dirt. The ground slides out. The floor opens up.

When the walls climb back, a gunshot is echoing in the police station.

Cas flies. He leaps to his feet and flies past the shotgun with his hand pressing forward. He touches the man and the man drops bonelessly.

Cas lands on the ground, shaking again. Shaking more, shaking harder, always shaking.

No. No, wait, he'd stopped, he was getting better, he'd stopped shaking. Why is he shaking?

"Cas?" Dean asks.

Cas hums, his back to Dean, his hand pressed to the floor that's moving beneath him. It's sliding to one side and there's a crack by the wall growing wider. But Cas isn't moving. The floor opens up beneath him and he stays, legs splayed beneath him, hand pressed to a void. His shoulders are rolling with tremors.

"Cas?" Sam repeats.

The movement is subtle, but when Cas spins he tips over onto his side. He grunts, crawling over to the wall and using it to stand. To mostly stand, anyway. He staggers down the space, shoulder tipped up against the wall and scraping against it, hands trembling where they press against it. One hand. The other one is holding something. Cas makes it a few steps and then sinks down. The object in his hand glints as he holds it up and tosses it. It slides to a stop just outside Sam's cell, disappearing from Dean's view but not before he sees what it is. What they are. Keys.

Dean stumbles from his cell once it's unlocked, unsure of the floor beneath him. What he is sure of is the blood dripping down the side of Cas's face, trailing from a wound buried in the angel's dark hair.

Cas shoves Dean's hand away when he goes to explore, voice raspy and hoarse. "The shot only grazed me."

And then Cas is gone and Sam is in his place, nudging Dean's head up and squinting into his eyes. "Dean?" There's wreckage of a car crash around them, beneath them, behind them, a black tank looming just past Sam's shoulder. The tank moves and the ground shakes. There's a rug caught up in the tread of the wheels, being pulled out from under Dean and Sam.

Shaking fingers find Dean's forehead and Dean falls flat on his back on the wooden floor of a house as the rug disappears.

Sam is talking somewhere. "Cas, are we... are you really here?"

"Really where?" Dean asks. "Where are we? Cas, what is this?"

The fingers press harder at Dean's forehead, probably bruising, and Cas, somewhere, beneath echoes of screaming, makes an odd little sound of surprise. Almost a "Huh."

"We are in a police station in Laramie, Wyoming." Even as Cas speaks, the walls reform, every poster and tackboard and door. "And I believe you are being contacted by a psychic." Cas's fingers fall away and his form wilts against the wall, pale and trembling. He doesn't look better, he looks worse. He's gotten worse again.

"What psychic?" Sam asks. He's pale, too. And shivering.

Too-cold cell, that sounds right.

"I don't know their name," Cas says, "but they are being held in the same men of letters facility that we escaped from."

The walls start spinning, the floor shaking, and Dean fists his hand and pushes at the concrete beneath him, trying to use the sensation to keep himself grounded. It doesn't work, of course, because the ground doesn't stay concrete. "Why are they contacting us?" Dean asks, frustration seeping through.

"They saw you free me. They've been calling out for help, trying to show you where they are."

Sam tilts forward. "How do you know that?"

Cas turns to look at Sam. His gaze isn't as deep as usual, his eyes aren't as focused. "Angel radio. Some of them have been praying to me."

"Why wait until now? Why not contact us the moment we left with you?"

Cas cants his head, and blood drips toward his eye that Sam hurries to clear.

"I believe they were trying to be kind. They knew you were searching for a cure and did not want to disrupt you or incite your anger, so they allowed you time to recoup before they decided to demand your aid."

Dean wants to punch a wall but they keep moving. "Has it even been a week? Hell kind of time is that?"

Cas gives him a hard look. "They are in pain, Dean. And it has in fact been nearly two weeks."

"Can you make them stop?"

"Dean," Sam warns. "I know your head's all over the place, mine is too, but look at Cas for two friggin' seconds and think about what you just asked."

Another tremor works its way down Cas's spine. He looks at Dean without really looking; eyes glazed over. The blood running down his face is stark against the whiteness of his skin, and he's not sitting up, not really. He's propped against the wall, shaking again. Psychics have power. And it would take power to break the connection. Power Cas doesn't have.

Dean looks him over for one more moment and then he tips forward to haul at his coat and arms. "Let's get out of here. Where's Bobby, Cas? You take your dose today?"

Sam breaks forward to help and between the two of them they get Cas upright and sort of walking.

It's hard, it is, with the floor trying to vanish out from under them, but they get through the door at the end of the room, hall, whatever it is. And then Dean realizes why the angel looks so much worse. "How many people did you knock out, Cas? Jesus." They map their way through bodies and desks and walk out the front door unchecked.

The impala's outside, but it takes until Dean is right up beside it it, propping Cas against it and popping the door to believe that it's real.

Sam draws to a sudden stop at the sight of it and Dean had to drag Cas alone the last few feet.

Dean is carefully helping Cas into the back.

"The car," Sam says.

"What?" Dean checks Cas's eyes—not dilated. He's panting, though, and Dean doesn't like it.

"They found us because of the car."

Dean freezes. First the bunker, now the car. "Son of a bitch."

"We'll take a different one," Sam says.

"I'm not leaving my baby."

"We'll come back for it."

Apparently Cas drove. They take that car, Bobby's car, but it doesn't feel right.

Outside the window, everything blurs.


	7. Chapter 7

Bobby hits Cas when they get to wherever Cas was directing them (it's hard to tell where that is when the world keeps getting spun around like the side of Rubix cube, a new variation even few moments). He hits him on the arm, but still. "Don't you use that mumbo jumbo crap on me," Bobby says.

Dean continues dragging Cas forward. "What?"

"Idjit knocked me out and then took my car. He was supposed to be an invalid."

Sam laughs. And then he trips on an invisible step and almost drags them down and Dean wishes he could laugh, he really does. It's just that none of this is funny.

They throw Cas on a bed that's only half there as far as Dean can tell. But Bobby was leading and Bobby led them to the bed so Dean figures it's a safe enough bet.

Dean sits on the floor that's not there at all, closing his eyes because this hallucinating crap is making him sick. He wonders if this is how Sam felt back when he was having those visions. He's never sympathized more.

"What's the plan, Dean?" Sam sits beside him.

Dean shrugs. "I got no frigging clue."

"Plan?" Bobby asks. "You're out, ain't ya?"

Dean shoves to his feet with a grunt. "I'll check for hex bags." He pats down his pockets first, but they're empty. "You believe that psychic crap Cas told us?"

Bobby blocks his way when Dean steps forward with no real destination in mind, only a partially formed idea to search.

"What psychic crap?" Bobby asks.

"That a captive psychic in the men of letters facility is making us see things. Possibly because they want our help to get out." Sam provides the answer. Dean provides a stance that refuses to wobble when the floor suddenly slams back into place.

Bobby's eyes narrow. He doesn't move but it feels like he's pressing closer to Dean. "You seein' things?"

Dean shoulders past, moving just to move. "I have eyes Bobby, of course I'm seeing things."

A grunt hits Dean from across the room. Bobby addresses Sam. "What kinds of things?"

The world is a lot more grounded than it was earlier. All but the ground, that is. The spinning of rooms has slowed down considerably, for which Dean is grateful. Maybe there was a hex bag back in that cell and it's starting to wear off now that they've left it. With any luck, this will be nothing more than a confused memory in a few hours. Dean glances sideways. "Cas get his dose today?"

The angel has his eyes closed. Sleeping, no doubt, and that just makes him look so much more vulnerable. They wrapped his head in the car, or tried, anyway, and thought they did a decent job, but the longer Dean stares the more he starts to wonder how the wrapping didn't just fall off.

Sam pauses in his explanation long enough to look over.

Bobby gives a grunting nod. "Took his dose before you were captured, remember? He told me."

Dean turns around with a frown, hating that the walls turn with him. "That was today? How long ago?"

"Well, it's night-time now, ain't it?"

The window snaps into Dean's view as he jolts. "What? It's still bright out." Really, really bright, middle of the day bright. And then Dean realizes it's been that bright since he woke up, that the sun hasn't moved an inch even though it's been hours.

Bobby frowns. He nods slowly. "Guess I know what you're seeing, don't I? Sun went down a few hours ago."

"Well, huh." That's kind of neat, actually, extra daylight. That could be a nice advantage. That is, if Dean didn't absolutely hate the fact that someone or something is screwing with his head.

Sam and Bobby continue their conversation. Dean continues wandering around the room in a meaningless search for hex bags. He's not sure he would see or feel them even if they were here. But Bobby's not hallucinating and as long as they're not hallucinating Bobby, it doesn't seem likely that a hex bag would be in here anyway. Dean searches nonetheless.

Sam screams and Dean coldly ignores it because the scream comes from in front of him and Sam is not in front of him. He thinks. Hopes.

"Dean?" Mary's voice has Dean turning. She's in the doorway. Probably.

"Hey. Bobby call you?"

Mary nods.

Dean's still mad at her. Mad that she used them, and maybe, just maybe, he's mad that she left again. He turns back to his pointless search, feeling the wallpaper for cracks and tears where someone might have peeled it back to paint a sigil. And he has to feel because he can't see it, can't even feel it half the time. "Why?"

"He thought you could use some help."

That's not really what Dean was asking. "We need people who can be up front with us, people we can trust to have our backs. I'm not sure that's you."

"Dean." It's hard to tell if that's Sam or Bobby, mostly because the scream somewhere behind this wall is still sounding in his ears.

"In fact, I'm almost sure it's not."

He expects her to roll over and he's not sure why because Mary Campbell-Winchester has never rolled over in her life. Not for anything or anyone. She's not the type to leave when things get hard. But oh, wait, yes she is.

"Dean, I'm here to help whether you like it or not." Her voice is like the bottom of a dried up well and all it does is frustrate Dean even more.

"You can't just drop off the map for three months, come back, use us as bait, and then dump us again! Family doesn't do that, mom. Mothers don't do that."

Her eyes are just as sandy and dry and ungiving as her voice is. "No offense, Dean, but you haven't had a mother for a long time."

Dean walks out. He means to, anyway. Instead he misjudges the location of the door that isn't there because all he can see is a sunny blue sky and a meadow. He hits a chair, kicks it out of the way, and barrels into a wall. Which he then punches.

A hand finds Dean's shoulder and Dean, assuming it to be Mary or Sam, starts to spin so he can shove them away. She doesn't get to sympathize, Sam doesn't get to talk him down. He doesn't understand because he never knew her, not really. He didn't have a mother to be stolen away, didn't watch her come back only to realize that she never actually came back. She's not who Dean remembers her to be and he has to wonder if he really remembers at all, if maybe he made it all up based on random tidbits John provided. He hasn't had a mom for so long that he's not sure he ever even had one.

Dean spins around and finds that it's not Sam or Mary or even Bobby. Dean was armed to shove, ready to shove, already shoving, and has to turn his momentum into something else before he sends Cas to the floor. He loses his balance pulling his arms back and finds his torso busy following through on the swing, tipping forward toward the angel.

They end up smushed together, Dean reaching around Cas's back to brace him because Cas already wasn't steady and now he's halfway to falling. "You can't do that, Cas, I almost hit you. Warn a guy next time." The room is coming back, slowly, the halo of blue sky behind Cas disappearing from view, and Dean helps guide him to the nearest chair. Unfortunately, Dean kicked the nearest chair onto its side and finds that they have to go to the next nearest.

Dean adjusts the bandage on Cas's head and squints at his pupils. "You awake? You should be in bed, what are you doing?"

"I think I can block the visions."

Dean stops Cas's hand long before it reaches his head. "Don't." He's too mad to look at anybody else so he focuses on Cas. "You hungry? How long has it been since you ate?"

Cas gives a half-hearted little shrug, his nose curling. He hates eating, but Dean doesn't care because he needs it.

"I'll go find you some food, okay?"

He's still pale. Far too pale for Dean's liking. And still trembling from that over-expenditure of power at the station.

Mary breaks in. "Dean, maybe _I_ should-"

"Don't." It hardly even feels like his voice. She doesn't want to his mother? Fine. She doesn't get to be his mother. Dean directs his attention elsewhere. "Sam, get him some water."

This time, Dean finds the door.

He blasts the music loud but he can barely hear it. "It's not here," Sam says, over and over and over again. "There's no basement, there's no parking lot, Dean it isn't here." Dean wonders if he can blow out his eardrums when he can't hear anything and turns the music up another notch anyway. He drives by muscle memory for the most part, letting his mind wander and his body drive so that he doesn't find a sudden wall in the middle of the road and swerve to avoid it. He has to pull over a couple times when he doesn't have a single bloody clue where the road even is. He'd use a gps, but that would just fade in and out like everything else.

Something whispers that he should have let Mary do it, that his pride is going to make him die in a car crash, but he can't bring himself to care.

"It's not here," Sam says.

Dean swears at him. "I know it's not here, stop telling me. If there's a psychic out there, you can screw yourself. Same goes for a witch." He's fairly sure he yells the words, but he can't hear them. Just Sam. Sam, kicking up dirt, saying, "It's not here."

The gas station is fun. Dean feels like a blind man, arms half-extended to feel for things in front of him. He finds some soup and applesauce and bananas, and really, god knows what he buys.

It's as bright when he leaves as it was when he came, though the time on the clock flashes 1:52 a.m.

The music blasts on so hard that he flinches, hand jolting out to turn it down.

Sam and Mary and Bobby and Cas, they've been talking at the table while Dean was gone. They're still talking. It feels vaguely like a betrayal and he's not sure why. Of course they'd talk, why wouldn't they? Probably easier when Dean's not around.

Dean lets them talk. He puts the soup in the microwave and watches it. Tries to watch it. It disappears every few blinks, like there's an invisible shield on the right half of the microwave, blocking it from view.

"It's not here, it's not here, it's not here."

Dean pulls the soup out and peels the lid off. The next words almost startle him into dropping it because that's not Sam's voice. "You're missing it," a woman hisses. Not Mary, not Jody, not anyone he knows.

Dean is stunned into replying. "What?"

"The floor."

Bobby looks up, a pinch to his gaze.

Dean ignores it, moving to grab a spoon and waiting for the table to spin back into view so that he can set the soup in front of Cas. "Eat that. Let it cool down first."

Dean crawls into a bed. Let them talk, he thinks, or would, if he wasn't so focused on ignoring the floor that isn't there. The one that keeps sliding out from under him.

"It's not here."

"_You're missing it,_" the voice says again, already fading out. "_You missed it, i__t was there. We were there."_

Mary's voice fades in. "There was this member a long time ago; Cuthbert Sinclair, a master of spells. He found a way to make a place invisible and inaccessible except by magic."

Magnus. The man who wanted to add Dean to his collection.

"We know, mom."

Dean tenses.

Sam continues, "We met him."

He doesn't say that Dean killed him while wearing the mark of Cain.

"Your men of letters kicked him out," Mary says. "He took his designs to the British chapter."

The meadow flashes back into view, and the floor slides beneath Dean and pulls him forward like he's on a treadmill. A parking lot appears, and then a building standing tall above it.

"It's not here," Sam says. "The facility's not here, but it was. It _was._ I swear, Dean, it was here."

It _was_ there. They had it wrong.

Dean sits up. "What's the plan, Sammy? We're gonna take down those British dicks and in the process we're get our bunker back, get Baby back, and shut up this stupid psychic."


	8. Chapter 8

It's harder the second time. Cas isn't dying and it doesn't feel like this is a risk worth taking anymore. And there's also the problem of the rooms spinning and Bobby and Mary trying to argue all the reasons that Dean and Sam and Cas shouldn't come. Dean agrees on the Cas part, and kind of on the Sam part, but _he's_ going, spinning floors be damned.

Someone should stay and watch Cas, though. In case more men of letters come, in case he relapses, in case he doesn't _stay_. Dean's vote is Mary.

But there's a look on Mary's face that says she won't stay and she's about to pull a play from her back pocket to enforce it. One that says she's got a real reason and it's not one that Dean is going to like.

"I've been working with the men of letters," she finally says, and Dean has to look around the room at Sam and Bobby and Cas to be sure he heard correctly because psychic intervention is a real possibility.

"Seriously?" Dean asks, when no one else responds. "They tortured Sam, they almost killed Cas, what more do you need to realize that the British men of letters are bad guys?" Dean's still not sure he heard correctly. "You've been working with them?"

Mary shifts her shoulder like his angry tone will roll right off. "They have some good ideas, Dean. We've taken down a lot of monsters."

"Seriously?" That's Sam now. "Mom, so do we. That's what you've been doing? Hunting? Why couldn't you do that with _us_?"

Mary rolls her shoulder again. Maybe she's uncomfortable, like she_ should_ be for keeping this from them now, of all times. "Anyway, I can get us in, I know the spell. But I have to be there."

"I am fine on my own," Castiel insists. His voice still sounds like a dog that got lung cancer from smoking two packs a day. "No one needs to stay and 'watch' me. I am not a child."

Dean silences him with a look. "Last time, you ran off and blew all the grace you need to heal even while you were being watched. And right before that, you and Sam were overpowered by a couple of humans with guns who would be all too happy to get a hold of you again. Forgive me for wanting to take some extra precautions this time."

"Five," Cas says.

"What?"

"You said a couple humans with guns. Actually, there were five. And I do forgive you."

Dean rolls his eyes. "It doesn't matter. You aren't coming, and you aren't staying by yourself, end of discussion."

"So I've been thinking," Sam says.

Dean refrains himself from making a poorly timed joke. He also determinedly ignores the fact that they now appear to be standing on a dirt road with a black tank tromping towards them and Sam's voice echoing against the side of a concrete building.

"If we're going after the whole British men of letters organization in America, shouldn't we involve some other hunters? I mean we're not just gonna go in guns blazing, are we?"

People turn to look at Dean and Dean stands there blank-faced because honestly? Yeah, that's exactly what they're going to end up doing. That's what they always end up doing. "Who else are we supposed to involve? Garth?"

"I was thinking Jody, but sure." Sam nods. "Garth would be great, do you have tabs on him?"

"No. And we're not involving Jody in this, that's a horrible idea."

"Well, we could always go the other direction. Crowley and Rowena?" Sam gives Dean a look. "Would you like to owe them some new favors?"

"No. That's why it's just us here, okay? _We'll_ do this." There's a spray of dirt and concrete chunks as the tank blasts the building. Dean jolts away automatically and then straightens himself with a growl, pushing through the conversation, glad he can still hear it. "We've gone up against bigger and badder and we've always come out on top."

"On top? Dean, are you serious?"

Bobby points toward the door. "I'm just gonna-"

"We never come out on top. Not once have we come out 'on top.' Going it alone with no real plan? _That_ is a horrible idea."

Bobby grabs Mary and tugs her with him, voice low beneath Dean's response. "Come on, Mary."

"The apocalypse. Huh? We stopped that. Hitler. Killed him. We took down Lucifer and Cain and The Darkness and all those big bads. I don't see why this should be any different. In fact it will probably be a whole lot easier, 'cause these guys? These guys are human. There's no cage, no Mark of Cain, no Hand of God. We don't need anything but a bullet to take these guys down, and I, for one, think we should march in there and do it before they hunt us down again."

Sam's eyes catch on an empty corner of the room but he hurriedly shakes his head and turns back. "Yeah, but these aren't just guys, Dean. They're hunters, like us. Better than us. They have tools and contraptions and spells and there's a whole lot more of them than just five. If we don't find a real way to do this, we're going to get killed."

"Well, I'm not calling Jody." Dean would die first. "We're not dragging anyone into our mess, not after Charlie. I'm not doing that again."

"It's not our mess, Dean. For the first time in ever, it is not our mess. We didn't do this. We didn't bring these guys here, we didn't bring them down on us. And if they're coming after us because we said no to joining their club, then they're probably going after other people too. We can all fight back together."

The room spins and suddenly it's not a tank anymore, but a person. Someone standing tall, waving their hands and casting spells. Dean's voice rises as he pulls his focus back to the conversation. "They're not coming after us because we said no," he corrects. "They're coming after us because of Cas." Dean turns to find the angel sitting on the bed. "No offense, Cas."

Castiel's eyes pinch as his head tilts. "Why would I take offense to that?"

"They're coming," Dean tells Sam, "because we have an angel up our sleeve and they want him."

Sam looks at Dean like he's an idiot, but a moment later Sam is gone and an empty hallway is in his place, screams echoing off the walls. The floor moves and Dean jolts trying to keep his balance, fumbling backward a few steps. His hand hits an end table and the motel room snaps back in place.

Sam is looking at Dean pointedly. Waiting for a response.

"I didn't get that. You faded out for a second."

"They wanted _me_ too," Sam says frustratedly. "When Toni Bevell took me out of the bunker, she wanted to know about the other hunters. Where they were and how many there were and how good they were. I guarantee you that wasn't some random line of questioning from a woman of letters gone rogue. They are going after other hunters and when recruitment doesn't work... It's assimilate or die, here, Dean. They're going to capture hunters one by one and use them to find others until they've wiped us all out."

"_Why_ would they do that? We're on the same side."

"They're on their own side, Dean. And like you said, they're bad guys, and we're taking them down anyway, aren't we? I just think we could use a little help." A deafening blast nearly drowns out Sam's words. More shrapnel flies across Dean's vision and if he ducks who could blame him? This whole situation is putting Dean on edge. Literally and metaphorically because apparently the floor prefers not to be there.

"We have help," Dean says. He has to grit his teeth to get the words out without yelling, and the whole room seems to blast apart and Dean sits on the bed with the pretense of checking Cas's head where the bullet grazed it. "We have Mary and Bobby, and that's two more people than we usually have. That's _double_ the people we usually have."

Sam shakes his head and then Dean is hearing, "Not here, not here, not here."

"No it's not," Sam says over himself, "because we're down Cas and we're down whoever stays to watch him."

"Look," Dean says, voice rising because he can't hear himself and he's sick of trying so hard and he hates that a lot of what Sam is saying makes sense. He can barely function in the one room of this motel and he's not liking their odds in a spelled labyrinth with enemies around every corner. "You want to call a hunter in? Fine. Find someone that doesn't hate us and doesn't hate angels and _they _can stay and watch Cas."

"I do not need to be watched."

"Shut up, Cas. That's the one thing me and Sam agree on, you don't get a vote." Marching feet sound outside the room and Dean can't tell if they're there or not. "You hear that?" he murmurs to Cas, because Cas will answer where Sam would just use the doubt against him.

"No," Cas says. "Of course, unless you clarify, I can't-"

Dean claps him on the shoulder. "Yep, thanks, the 'no' was all I needed." But when Dean turns to Sam, his brother is giving him a bitch face, arms crossed. The sound of marching grows louder. When Sam continues to look and doesn't say anything, Dean grows defensive. "What?"

Sam frowns. His hallucinations aren't as bad as Dean's, can't be. He's too functional, too unresponsive to imaginary surroundings and people.

"I gave you the go-ahead," Dean says. "So, go ahead. Call your hunter friends. And I mean _hunter_ friends, not Jody or someone."

Sam's frown deepens and that's when Dean realizes that Sam isn't actually looking at him, he's looking past him.

"Dean?" he asks, eyes pinched.

Dean is on his feet in a second. "I'm right here. What're you seeing?"

Castiel's rising hand follows his raspy voice. "I think I can block the-"

"No!" Dean shoves his arm away. "Keep your grace to yourself. Sam?"

Truth be told, Dean is starting to get a headache. And not like a drunk, sick, hangover headache but one that sort of sinks into your skull after a bad hit and makes you start to wonder if you're hemorrhaging or brain-damaged.

Sam isn't moving. Isn't flinching away from shrapnel or villains or a shifting rug, isn't talking to projections or to Dean, isn't snapping back after a few seconds of disorientation.

"Sam?" Dean starts to wonder if it's him who's seeing things. "Cas, where are we? Are we here? Are you seeing this?" Dean grabs his brother's shoulders and shakes him, only to panic when Sam winces and a moment later blood starts dripping from his nose. Dean pushes him to sit on the other bed. "Sam? Cas?"

Castiel sways when he stands and Dean hurries to right him. "What's going on?"

When Cas reaches forward to touch Sam's forehead, Dean doesn't stop him. Cas frowns. He shifts his touch, moving his fingers closer to Sam's hairline. "I think they're talking."

"What?"

"I believe Sam is communicating with the psychic. I can block the connection, if you-"

More blood starts streaming from Sam's nose and Dean doesn't hesitate. "Do it."

Castiel furrows his brow and a moment later Sam's head jolts to the side and dislodges the angel's hand. Cas makes a raspy sound and pitches backward. He catches himself before Dean can, stumbling back the last few feet until he's again sitting on the bed, this time moving to lean against the headboard.

Sam's fingers curl into the hair of his scalp. He wipes at his nosebleed with his sleeve.

"Sam?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. What was that?"

"What was what?" Sam asks, shooting Dean a confused look.

"You clocked out on me," Dean says carefully. His headache is getting worse, and he's worried that maybe Sam has one too. That maybe they_ are_ bleeding into their brains.

Sam shakes his head and frowns at the blood on his hand as he swipes at his nose again. He looks tired all of a sudden. "No, I didn't."

Yes you did, Dean wants to say. He refrains, humming lowly instead. "I think maybe _you_ should stay with Cas."

Sam rolls his eyes and stands. He walks toward the bathroom. "It's just a nosebleed."

Dean's hum slips into a sigh. "Cas, are you sure about-" Dean turns to face the angel and finds him lax on the bed. "Cas?"

The marching hasn't stopped. Or maybe it did and it started again. It's so loud and real that Dean finds himself turning, expecting an army of people passing by outside. There's nothing there and Dean's nerves ratchet up a little higher as he moves to check the angel's still form.

Castiel is slumped against the headboard, eyes closed, but pulse strong, and Dean tugs him down to lay flat. "I don't know what day it is," he realizes, because the brightness doesn't stop. "Do you need another dose or did you just wear yourself out with whatever you did to Sam?"

Cas isn't awake and doesn't respond. Dean doesn't like this. He raises his voice. "Sam, you're okay, right?"

"I'm fine," comes the response from the bathroom.

Dean moves around the beds and toward the door leading outside, glad that he can see reality well enough to do so without any problems. He means to ask Bobby what time of day it is but when he gets there, it's to see an empty parking space where Bobby's car was parked before. "Bobby?" Dean looks up and down the side of the building but Bobby is gone, and Mary with him because her car is gone too. Dean swears. Repeatedly and loudly and then all of a sudden he's being slammed into by an invisible form.

He shoves back at it, the marching so much louder. And then the parking lot and building disappear and Dean is watching an army led by a tank march across an ever-changing landscape. Road and mud and dirt and meadow but the sky never changes, the sun never falls. One soldier shoves past him, not bothering to look, and Dean takes a careful step backward, arms raised on either side with the hope that he'll find a motel room door or wall and not just air.

His hand hits flannel instead. "Sam?" Something is pressed into Dean's palm and he looks down to find a hex bag. It disappears almost as soon as he sees it, and Dean blinks to find that he's back outside the motel staring at an empty parking space.

He goes inside and closes the door, already pulling out his phone. Bobby doesn't answer. Mary doesn't either. Dean leaves them both somewhat unkindly voicemails just as Sam is coming out of the bathroom all cleaned up.

"They left us." Dean shoves his phone into his pocket. "Went to the base without us, no doubt."

"What?" Sam looks at him tiredly.

Dean grabs his jacket and duffel. "You stay with Cas, I'm going after them."

"Dean, wait!" Sam's call follows Dean out the door.

So does Sam, because the next thing Dean knows his brother is grabbing his arm while he's trying to figure out transportation. "Hold up a second," Sam says. "You don't know that they went without us. They could have gone to get food or something."

"I called, they didn't answer. They went without us."

Every time. Every single time Sam shakes his head, it's a barrage of "Not here, not here, not here."

Sam's real response gets inlaid somewhere inside it. "You don't know that, Dean."

Dean grinds his jaw. "I'm going. If mom's not there, I won't get in anyway."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm going."

Sam's grip on his arm tightens. "Not without me." He's tugging Dean back toward the door. "We'll try calling them again. And we'll find someone to stay with Cas, and then, if we need to, we'll go."

The psychic is having fun with Sam's voice, making it ring against Dean's skull. "Go, go, go."

"We don't have time for that," Dean snaps, twisting his arm free. "If we don't go now, Mom and Bobby are going to get themselves killed."

"If we _do_ go now, we'll get killed right alongside them. Just give me one hour, Dean."

Dean's headache is growing ever worse. Urgency is simmering beneath his skin.

Sam shifts his feet and an echo ghosts into place, making him jerk back like something punched him, hurt curling his face and form. It's gone just as soon as it comes and Sam is standing straight again, looking at Dean and waiting, untouched by whatever just flashed through Dean's mind.

"Fine," Dean grumbles against his better judgement, head pounding. "You have one hour."


End file.
